The Smashing Pumpkins are one of the most prolific bands out there – they just released ATUM, 33-track rock opera – but they have more music we haven’t heard. While grabbing a lithium battery from SiriusXM, drummer Jimmy Chamberlain revealed that the band recorded a psychedelic album and a Christmas album during the unheard of COVID-19 lockdown.
“As far as the pandemic is concerned, I have a studio in my house,” Chamberlain said. Billy has a studio in his house. We live 20 minutes away. We are not neighbors, but very close to each other. We can get to each other’s homes very quickly. We recorded nearly 80 songs on Pestilence.”
Chamberlain continued, “So we did a job CYR register. We had a dope record we had on a back burner that we never got to. We recorded it. We did a Christmas record that we never got to make, and then we did all three, and he Atom, the 33rd song that was the caper. I was like, ‘Oh my God, please let it end. right?'”
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“But, no, it was great. I mean, you don’t get those big blocks of time anymore. You’re always either on tour, or you’re doing stuff like this. You get pulled in a million different directions. So it was COVID, we figured out that those might be The only point in time where we only have a year or even two to make music without any logistical constraints on the process.”
It doesn’t look like the Smashing Pumpkins have any plans to release a Christmas album, but hey, we have no shortage of music to enjoy. Kurgan even paid the pirates to stop her Atom from leaking early, so the final product will likely be as immersive and opulent as Smashing Pumpkins’ best work.
Later this year, the band will embark on “The World is a Vampire Tour” alongside Interpol and Stone Temple Pilots. Tickets are available here.
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